


I never did learn how to follow the rules

by eatsshootsleaves



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatsshootsleaves/pseuds/eatsshootsleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy rose and gathered her days work from where it had spread across the kitchen’s large oak table. It had been years, she thought, since someone had asked her about her family. Longer still since someone had asked that she actually felt comfortable confiding in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I never did learn how to follow the rules

**Author's Note:**

> All errors are my own.  
> Title comes from Hard Way Home by Brandi Carlile  
> Thanks for reading!

Margaret Carter had a lot of nervous habits. She bit her nails, ground her teeth, tapped incessantly with her pens on every surface, and bounced her leg continually whenever she found herself sitting for more than a few moments. But Margaret Carter was fairly confident that no one past her fifth year governess was aware of this fact. Each of those undesirable habits had been steadily drilled out of her by a series of nannies, governesses, and a ferociously strict but, fortunately, barely present mother. 

Yet, much like her left-handedness, and a few other traits she wouldn’t ever willingly discuss, some of those old habits slipped back out when she finally let her guard down at the end of a long and wearisome day.

“Peggy Carter, I swear to the lord almighty that if you don’t stop tapping that pen on the kitchen table I’m gonna stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

Peggy looked up stricken, only to be met with a smirk delivered from across the table by her roommate. That smirk died quickly when Angie took in the look Peggy had given her in response. 

“Oh geez English, I’m sorry, I know I can be a little, well you’d call it coarse, but my ma used to call it foul-mouthed. Guess she was right about that one, though all the washin’ out my mouth never did a damn thing except make my breath smell like a kitchen sink.”

Peggy quickly righted her expression. She had long since stopped her pen tapping and moved to halt Angie in what was sure to be another entertaining rambling streak.

“It’s quite alright Angie, if you think that’s coarse language you should hear the things the boys at the office mumble in my direction when the coffee runs out.”

“Oh, ok. Well then why the face?”

Peggy looked back down at the paperwork in front of her, buying herself some time to respond while just barely stopping herself from resuming hitting her pen off the table. Instead, she carefully placed the pen atop her notepad and formulated what would be an acceptable excuse for her previous moment of shock.

That excuse promptly flew out the window when she looked up and met Angie’s eager and sympathetic eyes. So Peggy defaulted to something that seemed to be coming up more and more every day that passed with her and Angie sharing Howard’s ridiculous penthouse, the truth.

“I was scolded,” Peggy’s eyes lowered back down to glare at the pen, “quite a bit actually, for doing that when I was young.

“What? Tapping a pen?” She could hear the confusion in Angie’s voice. “Really? But kids have energy Pegs. I suppose my ma used to scold me for ripping through all my dresses. Never really stopped me from climbing every tree I saw though.”

The image of a tiny Angie 30 feet up an oak tree brought a smile to Peggy’s face even as she fished through murky memories of her own childhood. 

“Yes, well, I suppose I didn’t have a particularly traditional childhood. I was taught almost exclusively by tutors and a governess. They typically didn’t appreciate youthful energy.”

Peggy couldn’t keep a slight note of bitterness out of her voice and she knew Angie would notice. The woman was far more astute then the world gave her credit for. It wasn’t a mistake Peggy ever made, however. 

“Well that’s a damn shame Pegs. A kid’s gotta run like a dog’s gotta shit. That’s what my dad used to say anyhow. Come to think of it, I’m starting to see where my foul mouth mighta come from.”

Peggy couldn’t hold back a laugh as Angie rose from the kitchen table to stir the pot of spaghetti threatening to boil over on the stove.

They’d taken to eating in the kitchen, the only room in Howard’s enormous residence that could even be remotely described as “cozy”. In fact large chunks of the penthouse had remained virtually untouched during the girl’s tenancy. Peggy, with her double duty at the SSR and working almost daily to form a new adjacent agency with Howard, had little time or desire to lounge about in the place’s resplendence. 

Angie, on the other hand, had confessed to Peggy that after the glamour wore off having a home this big made her borderline uncomfortable.  
(“It’s just… I’ve peed in every bathroom twice, jumped on all the beds, and skated through the parlor in stockings… I really don’t know what else rich folks do with a house this big.”)

Aside from this, Angie was absurdly happy with their new living arrangements, and told Peggy so almost daily. Less hours working at the automat meant more hours open for auditions, and Angie had already gotten a handful of small parts off Broadway. 

On top of that Howard had gotten her singing lessons as a birthday present. (Though Peggy suspected Jarvis had played a fairly large part in the gift selection process.) Peggy had thanked both men several weeks later. Voice lessons meant she came home to an apartment full of singing on a semi-regular basis; a gift Peggy hadn’t known she’d wanted but now couldn’t imagine living without.  
(When she told Howard that particular piece of information he gave her a look that she rarely saw on his face. It wasn’t till hours later she realized that was his expression when he was trying to hold his tongue rather than respond. A peculiar thing Peggy decided not to dissect further.)

Though things were far from settled, the ever-growing threat from the Eastern Bloc had moved up her and Howard’s timeline for developing SHEILD, Peggy found that she was happy as well. Most of the men at the SSR were still ignorant on a good day and positively brutish on a bad day, but it hardly seemed to matter when she could come home to singing, and spaghetti, and the occasional bickering match between Angie and Jarvis as the fought over the spice rack. If anything Peggy had to tamp down her joy, because good things can’t always last and she needed to have her guard at the ready for when good fortunes ran out.

“You’re awful quiet, even for you English.” Angie’s voice cut through Peggy’s thoughts and she looked up to find the other woman staring contemplatively at her. They held each other’s eyes for a while till Peggy quirked up an eyebrow which caused a blush to rise up the other woman’s neck and she flipped back around to face the stove.  
(Peggy had noticed her ability to get this response from Angie a few weeks back and, much like Howards odd expression, she decided not to dissect it further.)

“You don’t talk about it much,” Angie’s voice was quiet but steady from in front of the stove. “Your childhood or, I guess, your family,” she flipped back around to face Peggy again. “And I would never pry, but if you ever wanted to talk about it, I’m a good listener, even though it probably doesn’t always seem like it.” 

They stared at each other from across the table a while longer, Peggy unable to formulate words in response and Angie now, ironically, tapping the wooden spoon in her hand against the stove.

“Right, I… If you don’t… Sorry, well…” Angie stuttered and flipped back towards the stove. “This should be done in five if you wanna clear off the table.”

Peggy rose and gathered her days work from where it had spread across the kitchen’s large oak table. It had been years, she thought, since someone had asked her about her family. Longer still since someone had asked that she actually felt comfortable confiding in. 

She looked at her pen as she tucked it into a drawer in the hallway. When was the last time she had let her guard down enough for one of her irritating nervous ticks to come out in front of another person?

A memory bubbled to the surface, of a scorching hot day on an American military base. She’d been in the passenger seat of a truck, and had nearly chewed through her pencil contemplating the recruits she’d been assigned to train. It was the largest task the government had ever given her and yet she was focused on one recruit in particular. That was two years and a lifetime ago.

When she’d stacked her papers on the hallway side table and returned to the kitchen Peggy noticed Angie’s slightly slumped shoulders as she stirred a large pot of sauce. She only barely tried to stop herself before marching over to Angie and wrapping her arms around the other woman’s slim waist.

Angie, for her part, promptly dropped the wooden spoon into the pot, “Damn.” As Peggy laughed and fished it out she felt Angie relax back against her.

“My childhood was a very privileged one, but not a particularly happy one. I don’t talk about it because most people have a hard time understanding that dichotomy. But you are certainly not most people, and don’t ever be afraid to ask me anything Angie. If there is something I can’t talk to you about, I’ll just tell you so.”

“Oh, ok. Thank you for telling me English.” Angie stood in Peggy’s grasp stock still, with her back resting against Peggy’s front and Peggy was beginning to feel she’d made a grievous error in embracing Angie this way. But when she started to take a step back Angie grabbed her arm and abruptly turned around.

They were standing extraordinarily close to each other with Peggy’s arms wrapped around Angie’s waist, albeit with one hand still holding a sauce covered wooden spoon.  
‘Oh damn…’ Peggy barely managed to keep the curse inside her head. She was rapidly becoming aware of exactly what she had been avoiding dissecting the past few months. And bloody hell, Angie was really far too close to her, and examining her far too intently. This was why she didn’t let her guard down. Peggy frantically searched for something to say to break the silence Angie seemed for too comfortable in.

“I used to bite my nails and grind my teeth, and well you saw the tapping. Apparently I was an extraordinarily anxious child.” Peggy could see a smile blooming on Angie’s face. “I was terribly clumsy too! Mother used to say it sounded like a herd of elephants lived in my room. Oh! And I’m left-handed...” 

Peggy’s rambling was mercifully stopped when Angie put a hand on either side of her face. 

“Geez English. Is this what I sound like when I get going?” To this Peggy could only shrug. All of her words seemingly having escaped under Angie’s gentle hold. “Well Pegs, I’m sure you were a perfect kid. And in our house you can tap as many pens as you damn well please. Course, if they all start going missing, well that won’t be my fault.”

This finally broke the tension and Peggy let out a warm laugh squeezing Angie’s side where her hand was resting. “Noted.”

Before Peggy had a chance to feel uneasy about how close they still were Angie leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, her lips dangerously close to Peggy’s. Angie then took a step back from the basically paralyzed Peggy and slapped her on the butt effectively breaking the other woman out of her trance. 

“Set the table English, this food is getting cold.”

Peggy just barely resisted sticking out her tongue, deciding enough of her childish habits had come to the surface today. Or so she thought until her giddy, unsteady hands knocked over a pitcher of water on the table. 

Angie whipped quickly around tossing a towel on the table and then leaning back on the stove. “That’s not like you English.”

“Yes, well, I told you I was quite clumsy as a child.”

“Mmmmmhmmm sure. Maybe something made you nervous tonight?”

Peggy glanced up at the mischievous look in Angie’s eyes, “damn,” she couldn’t keep the curse to herself this time.


End file.
